• Bhargab Das
• Debakshi Bora

Abstract: Rapid growth of urban population is a matter of great concern in 20th century’s world. Urbanisation is one of the major social changes sweeping the globe especially in developing countries. The term urbanisation refers to the increasing proportion of total population living in urban areas sociologically (S. Dharmaraj). There has been a rapid trend towards urbanisation in India particularly after independence in spite of the predominant rural nature of our economy. Population residing in urban areas in India, according to 1901 census was 11.4%. This count increased to 28.53% according to 2001 census and crossing 30% as per 2011 census. Assam is one of those states of India among North East region, which is traditionally rural and agriculture and allied activities being the primary occupation of its population. However, over the years there has been an upward trend towards urbanisation and it got momentum particularly in the post independence period. The major objective of this paper is to study the trend and level of urbanisation in Assam and investigate the relationship between urbanisation and Human Development in Assam. This study is based on secondary sources of data collecting from census of India handbook, statistical handbook of Assam 2016, district census handbook, various journals, articles etc. To find the degree or level of urbanization in Assam percentage Urban-Rural ratio has been calculated. To know the concentration of urban population in different districts Location Quotient (L.Q.) is done. To find out the relationship between urbanization and Human Development Index correlation coefficient has been used and to study the cause effect relationship between them regression has been done by taking HDI as dependent variable and level of urbanization as independent variable. The study revealos that the degree of urbanization in Assam is very low as compared to the national average. Prior independence degree of urbanization increased at a very low rate. However, after independence degree of urbanization started growing relatively faster than the previous period. It is also found that urban decadal growth rate is always higher that the rural and compound decadal growth rate of Assam during the period of 1901-2011. As per the relationship between urbanization and human development index is concerned the correlation coefficient is found 0.51 indicating a moderate positive correlation between them. At the district level Kamrup Metro, Dima Hasao, Jorhat, Tinsukia and Dibrugarh show high level of urbanization and high level of human development. On the other hand, there are few districts like Baksa, Darrang which have low level of urbanization and low level of human development. Again the result of the regression model indicates that rate of urbanization have statistically significant effect on the level of human development.

Key words: Assam, Human Development, Trends and pattern, Urbanization.

"Status of Urbanisation in Assam and Its Relationship with Human Development", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.353-365, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905G49.pdf

"Status of Urbanisation in Assam and Its Relationship with Human Development", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp353-365, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905G49.pdf